Victor-Levy Beaulieu's novels all centre around the search for the sacred, a quest for meaning and the Absolute which is accomplished through self-degradation and transgression. In order to define and analyse the need for the sacred that motivates Beaulieu's characters (a need that is at the very heart of the literary project of both the prolific Quebec author and his fictional alter ego, Abel Beauchemin), we will focus on the following novels: La nuitte de Malcomm Hudd (1969), Un reve quebecois (1972) and Oh Miami, Miami, Miami (1973). By means of an analysis of three essential aspects of Beaulieu's writing---the relationship to time and space, the role of women in the male character's universe, and the function of violence---we will show how the author represents, in his novels, the complex interplay of (i) the two modes (the sacred and the profane) of existence, (ii) the bipolar nature of the sacred itself and (iii) the complicity linking taboo and transgression.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.29841 |
| Date | January 1999 |
| Creators | Rouleau, Caroline. |
| Contributors | Everett, Jane (advisor) |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | French |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Arts (Département de langue et littérature françaises.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 001686716, proquestno: MQ55004, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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